I have been posting this week about the great things I found this past weekend at the Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City. The Plaza Art Fair is a huge cultural event in the city and includes booths from many of the local theaters, museums and other arts institutions in the city, like the amazing Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.

The museum was touting their upcoming exhibitions and handing out free copies of My 20th Century, a collection of photographs from fame photo journalist and Kansas City native David Douglas Duncan, and it is wonderful.

About My 20th Century by David Douglas Duncan: “From a legendary American photojournalist, iconic photographs from the Korean War to Picasso at his most intimate. David Douglas Duncan is one of the most revered American photographers of the twentieth century. Born in 1916, he was a witness to most of the century and captured many of its historic events and epic personalities through his lens. Beginning as a Marine Corps combat photographer in 1943, Duncan assembled a portfolio that features some of the most arresting photographs taken of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Duncan often plunged into the middle of the action to get the best shot, and his heroics with the camera won him a job with Life magazine. During his career, he traveled the world, shooting conflicts in Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. In 1956, he knocked on Pablo Picasso’s door and began a friendship that would make him the only person to photograph Picasso’s personal paintings and the artist in intimate scenarios—such as the bathtub. In My 20th Century, the now ninety-eight-year-old Duncan offers a curated selection of some of his very best photographs and a summary of his lifelong work. Designed by his own hands, the book includes riveting shots of a world torn by war, invigorated by art, and colored by diverse cultures. A true poet of the lens, adventurer, and teller of stories, Duncan belongs to the present as much as he does the past. His legacy lives on in this powerful visual tableau.”

In My 20th Century we are treated to Mr. Duncan’s fine work that not only tells the story of his professional life, but also the story of the 20th century itself.